BENGHAZI (Libya), March 9: Demonstrators flooded the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi in protest against federalism on Friday and one person was killed when an iconic market was set ablaze, journalists said.

Thousands of people converged at the seaside courthouse of Benghazi chanting slogans against federalism and its chief advocate, Ahmed Zubair al-Senussi, a press photographer at the scene said.

Senussi is the head of the regional council seeking to secure autonomy for the Cyrenaica region, or Berqa in Arabic, in an initiative announced on Tuesday that has sparked fears the country might split up.

In Tripoli, thousands of people amassed in the symbolic Martyrs Square, singing “No, no to federalism” and “Libya is one,” a journalist at the scene said.

Earlier, a huge fire, thought to be the work of arsonists, ripped through a Benghazi furniture market and other blazes erupted in shops across the coastal city, a journalist reported.

A conference hall where advocates of federalism were expected to meet was also targeted, witnesses said.

The incidents sparked a heavy deployment of security forces.

“We do not know the motive for the incidents but investigations are underway,” said Fawzi Wanis, head of the high security committee.

“The fires appear to have been caused by arson,” said another security official, Tareq Hassan al-Bakush.

Residents and fire-fighters joined forces to put out the flames at the furniture market while dozens of people were rushed to hospital.—AFP